Heart Changes

If you have not read or watched Radical by David Platt, you need to.  We are almost done with watching the series online and I can say that it has changed the way I think.  And what I love about it is that it is not just some guy standing up there talking about his ideas.  This is a guy talking about scripture, and not just one little verse here or there.  These are passages that I have read many times before, but watching this series I have been forced to really think about what they are saying and not just gloss over them in my familiarity like I am apt to do.

In one of the Radical lessons that we watched, the pastor talked about the rich man who came to Jesus and asked what he must do to be saved.  Jesus said to sell everything he had and give it to the poor, and the rich man walked away sad because he had many possessions.  Then Jesus said "how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."  After a reality check of how exceedingly wealthy we all are (most of the world lives on $2 a day), he challenged us to ask God what He wants us to give up for Him.

And lest anyone get defensive, he did explain that Jesus' command to the rich man was not a universal command to all Christians.  God loves rich people and we are not all called to give up everything we have, but wealth can be, and is oftentimes, a barrier to following Christ.

So I have being praying and asking God what He wants me to give up to follow Him.  When the Hendrick family prayed this, they were answered with the call to sell their house and move to Haiti, so I have been a little bit apprehensive it.  I do not want to move to Haiti! However, I have not heard anything that monumental...yet.  What I have been hearing is a gradual stirring in my heart through this whole process.

Here are three things that I believe God is telling me to give up.

1.  My "right" to live the way I want to.  In my mind I have mapped out our future according to the American Dream.  Save a little money, buy a cute little house, have some cute little babies, and live comfortably.  None of those things are necessarily bad, but I need to be willing to let God direct my paths instead of holding onto what I want so tightly.

2.  My ignorance.  Isn't it interesting that the words 'ignorance' and 'ignore' are so similar?  I know that there are a few things that I have been avoiding learning about because they are too much trouble.  I know that if I go learn about a problem then I will not be able to ignore it anymore and my life will become more inconvenient.

For example, I read Heather Hendrick's blog and a while back she did a series of posts about human trafficking and how they were changing their spending habits in order to stop supporting companies that exploit people.  I intentionally did not look into the matter because I did not want to deal with changing anything in my life.  I like Target and I like the Gap and I did not want to find out that I can't shop there anymore.

However, recently I have been feeling more and more of a conviction that I cannot live in blindness anymore and I need to open my eyes to these things.  I am praying that God would bring to my attention what I need to know and that my heart would be receptive and not resistant.

3.  Frivolous spending.  We have a budget, live within our means, tithe, and do not go into debt, so I had it in my mind that as long as we followed those principles, we could spend our money how we like.  But I have been convicted that I am selfishly considering myself first.  Not that I can never splurge again, but that I do not need to selfishly be spending all our "extra" money just because I can.

And once I stop ignoring the problem of inadvertently supporting human trafficking by buying anything regardless of how it got to me, I may have fewer options to choose from and less money to spend on them anyway.